Saturday in the Park

 Disclaimer: No parks were visited, perused, or harmed in the making of this blog post. This post is a work of "fiction." Any resemblance to a park, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Visiting parks does not increase chances of a better blog post. Seek medical or professional attention for parks suddenly existing where none were before.

     Sadly, the above disclaimer is (mostly) true. Not that that's a bad thing. We just didn't have parks on the docket today. What we (not in the royal "we" sense) had on the schedule was a basketball game, rock climbing and youth group. And, wow, was it a fun day.

     Where to start? I'd switch it up and start in the middle but that's too predictable. I'll go with the beginning. I woke up, had my juice and cleaned my apartment in anticipation of the evening's festivities. But before the evening, I had some other things to do. Last weekend I was invited to go out rock climbing with the McLanes. This week it was amended to include a basketball game and lunch afterward.
     Both the game and lunch were a lot of fun. The boys basketball team from KCA was scheduled to play their final game of the season. They played well but lost in the end. They did get second place of the teams in their league. After the game, we went back to the McLane's apartment to have lunch. This is where things got a little weird.

It's better than bad, it's good!

     I asked Maya if there was anything I could help with and she told me, "You can cut the ice cream." .......Yes, those exact words. She then proceeds to pull these two logs out of the freezer and set them on the counter. It turns out, you can buy ice cream here in logs. Mind blown. I knew you could buy milk in bags here. Canada does that too.
     Last year, I went to Poland and had a quesadilla at KFC. That wasn't nearly as weird as seeing logs of ice cream emerge from the freezer. The best way to describe it is a sausage made of ice cream in a foil wrapper. It even has the metal clips on the end to keep everything locked in place. The ice cream is pretty darn good too. Maya McLane described it as "similar to Dairy Queen." I'd agree except that it's consistency is nothing like soft-serve.

Sliced and ready to serve.

     After I had recovered from that surprise, I cut the sausa....ice cream into small chunks and put it in two big bowls. It was put away until people started arriving. We ate, watched some funny videos on Youtube and finally left around 3:30 to go rock climbing.
     I had hoped to get more time at the rock-climbing gym. But as it was, the amount of time was good. I haven't gone rock climbing in over a decade. Back in highschool, I was in a homeschool club that met weekly in a rock climbing gym. It was always a lot of fun. I was glad to get to go again. This place was small. The walls were only about twenty feet (six meters) tall. But it was enough to show me how out of shape I really am. My arms will be sore for a few days. It is, however, good motivation to work up my hand and arm strength again.

So many possibilities, so little time.

      At first, I thought the sign for the gym was a clever language-pun. Phonetically, the sign says "scal-o-drome." I thought it was making a reference to "scaling a wall." Turns out, I was correct. Скалодром translates to "climbing wall." Only there was no pun involved. It's just the translation.
     It took a while to actually find the place. The building is buried back in an athletic center behind a locked gate and guard-shack. The first person we asked didn't know what Maya was talking about. Fortunately the second guy was a lot more helpful. Unfortunately, I only had about thirty minutes to climb around before I had to leave. I basically got enough time to realize that my climbing-skills aren't what they used to be. That makes me sound old. I'm not. Just out of practice. I still have the technical know-how. But the equipment is a little rusty. Still, I had fun and want to go again.
     I left there about 4:40. From their door to mine at a brisk pace is just about twenty minutes. But it also takes another minute to get from the ground floor to mine. I arrived at my door to a chorus of joking "AWWWW!" and a group from Big City.
     About two weeks ago, Yura from Big City asked me to be involved in the church's youth group. Not as a leader, but someone who can answer questions and (more importantly) provide a good location to meet. My apartment fit the bill well. We almost had too many people. Cozy is the right word for it. Luckily for me, all I had to do was provide a place to meet and tea. And answers, but we'll get to that.
     Zhenya, the guy holding the guitar in the picture below, is one of the new elders elected last year in Big City Church. He was recently hired by the church to be it's youth pastor. I'm very familiar with how they used to operate. Way back in November, I had a chance to talk to the youth group but haven't done anything with them lately. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening with them on Saturday.

Back (L-R): Anyuta, Dasha, Marina, Yulia, Natasha. Front (L-R): Yura, Brian, Dima, Zhenya, Slava.

     Yura gave me a list of questions ahead of time for me to look over. The night was planned to be a Q&A session with the missionary. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to spend time with everyone from Big City. This was a good chance to meet and spend time with a few more. The translated version of the questions is listed here. Disregard the missing words/bad grammar. This is the exact list I received.

1. Could you tell us about yourself , because not everybody knows you well. What was your job in USA, hobby. What did you do there at all?
2. What is missionary? For you personally?
3. Why did you decide to be a missionary? Was there something that impressed you so much to be one? Maybe there were some situations, through you were able to see, that God wants you be his follower in another country?
4. What did you do to prepare yourself for going abroad? What goals did you have?
5. How long have you been in Ukraine? Had you been before in this country or others? What countries?
6. Did you have any fears before trip to Ukraine? What was it exactly?
7. If you had ones, how did you overcome them? Where did you take strength from?
8. What is the most interesting in missionary?
9. Did you have any funny situations while you are here, in this country?
10. Again, one more time, what is missionary personally for you? What does it give you and to others? In what way are you serving God here?
11. What advise could you give to those people who has a desire to be a missionary and serve in another country?
12. Would you like to stay in Ukraine longer? If you come back to USA will you think about going one more time to somewhere as a missionary?
13. Did God open you something new while you are serving here?
14. How did you understand that God calls you to be a missionary? That it is not just your desire but calling from Lord?
15. Could you tell us - what things inspire you the most? And could you read your favorite verse from the Bible?

     As you can see, it was also a chance for them to get to know me better. It was good to think about these questions. Some of them I've already answered in the blog and elsewhere. But not for everyone who was there Saturday night. I got to tell them a little about my inspiration for coming here, difficult and funny situations, and thoughts on being a missionary. And if you're interested, I answered Joshua 1:9 for the last question. I call it my "wingman" verse.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. (NIV) Joshua 1:9

     The whole night wasn't just questions. We also played games (UNO and Penny Hockey), ate dinner, sang songs, and laughed a whole lot. The picture above is one of sixteen that I took while we were being goofy. Making photos seems to be a big part of get-togethers here. Not just selfies and candids. Portraits too.
     Side note: Penny Hockey is quickly becoming a game-of-choice for gatherings.
     I want to say thanks to Yura for asking me to be involved in the youth group. It was tons of fun. I'm really looking forward to the next meeting. Not sure when it'll be. Hopefully soon.
     That just about brings me up-to-date. Sunday (March the 13th) looks like it'll be a normal day; church and then English club. Monday will likely be a little different. David asked me to help him make a video of the club for showing to churches back home. That request was based on the video I made back in December for the Big City English Club Christmas party. I threw together a rough draft this week of the club from footage I took on Monday on my phone. You can see it here. Obviously it's not a finished product. Just something I did to get an idea of what it could look like and possibly spark some other creativity.
     I'll leave this post at that. Thanks for continuing to follow along with the ministry and adventure here. Much more to follow. Parks not guaranteed.